I\u2019ve been a teacher for about fifteen years now. I have two kids of my own, but hands down, the best birth story I\u2019ve ever heard came from a second grader in my own classroom.<\/p>\n
Like most teachers, I do show-and-tell with my students. It\u2019s a great way to build confidence, get them talking, and honestly, it\u2019s usually pretty mild \u2014 pet turtles, favorite toys, photos of fish caught over the weekend, that sort of thing. I never set limits. If a student wants to bring something in and talk about it, they\u2019re welcome to.<\/p>\n
And then came Erica.
\nErica was a bright, lively, totally unfiltered little girl. On her show-and-tell day, she marched proudly to the front of the class\u2026 with a pillow stuffed under her sweater.
\nThe other kids were instantly hooked.
\nHolding up a photo of a newborn, she began:<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is Luke, my baby brother. I\u2019m gonna tell you about his birthday.\u201d
\nI’m already trying not to laugh.
\n\u201cFirst, Mom and Dad made him as a symbol of their love. Then Dad put a seed in my mom\u2019s stomach, and Luke started growing in there. He ate for nine months through an umbrella cord.\u201d<\/p>\n
I had to bite my lip. The kids were riveted.
\nShe kept one hand on her \u201cpregnant\u201d belly, completely committed to the performance.
\n\u201cThen, about two Saturdays ago, Mom starts going, \u2018Oh! Oh! Oh!\u2019\u201d
\nErica bent over and started waddling around, groaning dramatically.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe walked all over the house like this, \u2018Oh! Oh!\u2019\u201d
\n(At this point, she\u2019s doing a duck walk. It\u2019s pure theater.)
\n\u201cThen Dad called the middle wife. She delivers babies. She doesn\u2019t have a sign on her car or anything, like the Domino\u2019s guy.\u201d
\nI\u2019m dying.
\n\u201cSo the middle wife came and had Mom lie down like this\u2014\u201d
\n(She slides down the wall, feet outstretched.)
\n\u201cThen, POP! My mom had this water balloon in there in case he got thirsty, and it just exploded everywhere! Like pshhhhhhew!\u201d
\n(She throws her arms out and mimes a dramatic splash.)<\/p>\n
\u201cThen the middle wife said, \u2018Push! Push!\u2019 and \u2018Breathe! Breathe!\u2019 They started counting, but never even got past ten before \u2014 BAM! \u2014 out comes Luke! He was covered in all this yucky stuff. They said it came from Mom\u2019s play center, so I guess there\u2019s toys in there.\u201d
\nBy now, the class is wide-eyed, jaws dropped, completely absorbed.
\n\u201cThen the middle wife spanked him, probably for crawling up in there in the first place!\u201d<\/p>\n
And with that, Erica took a big, sweeping bow and returned to her seat.
\nI applauded louder than anyone.
\nFrom that day on, I never show up to Show-and-Tell without my camcorder.
\nBecause you never know when another Middle Wife might make her debut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019ve been a teacher for about fifteen years now. I have two kids of my own, but hands down, the best birth story I\u2019ve ever heard came from a second grader in my own classroom. Like most teachers, I do show-and-tell with my students. It\u2019s a great way to build confidence, get them talking, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":403,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-jokes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=402"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":404,"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402\/revisions\/404"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}